


Angry Heart (The Delancey Brothers)

by politics_and_prose



Series: This is my family; I found it, all on my own [7]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 12:46:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18343979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politics_and_prose/pseuds/politics_and_prose
Summary: I honestly have no idea why I decided to write about these two.  It's mostly focused on Oscar, but Morris is there too.  It takes place from when they boys are young through the beating during the strike.





	Angry Heart (The Delancey Brothers)

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly have no idea why I decided to write about these two. It's mostly focused on Oscar, but Morris is there too. It takes place from when they boys are young through the beating during the strike.

“Hey, Ozzie?” 

“Yeah, Mo?”

“When ya think Dad’s gon’ come back?”

Oscar looked around at the mostly abandoned farm, just a couple Polish men cleaning out the cow pen. “Donno. Soon though, probably. Been gone a couple weeks now.”

Morris nodded and leaned against the wooden fence. “Feels like a’most as long as Momma.”

“Almost,” Oscar agreed.

\--

“How long have you kids been livin’ out here on your own?”

Morris looked at the tall man and shrugged while Oscar looked thoughtfully at the sky. “Donno. Couple’a months maybe. Our dad just went to Pennsylvania ta get a couple’a more goats since we only got one left.”

“I’m sorry, boys, but you can’t stay here without an adult.”

“Bartek and Hans is adults!” Oscar shot back, determined not to have to leave the farm. “We been doin’ just fine all this time an’ our dad is comin’ back soon!”

“Are you speaking of the two gentlemen over there who don’t speak English?”

“Yeah. Makes it easier ‘cause they don’t check up on us or nothin’. We do whatever we want,” Morris added proudly, grunting when his brother socked him in the stomach. “I mean we know Polish talk.” He dodged the second blow his brother sent his way.

“Let’s go. You two are coming with me.”

Oscar tried to fight, tried to run, but the man with the hat and sneering face had too tight of a grip on his arm and he found himself dragged towards a wagon and tossed into the back.

“Once we get to the Refuge, we’ll see if you have any other kin that wants to claim you.”

\--

It took their mother’s brother Otto more than a week to claim them but once he did, Oscar and Morris were taken out of the Refuge and moved into their uncle’s home. It wasn’t a tenement but it definitely wasn’t the Delancey farm that they’d grown up on. Otto didn’t really take any interest in them, asking if they wanted to go to school (Morris no and Oscar yes) before deciding he would just get them jobs with him at The World.

\--

They both liked the job, which was basically making sure the orphans and poor kids didn’t step out of line when they came to get their papers. Morris didn’t really do much but glare at the kids, mostly because he couldn’t read and didn’t want them to make fun of him. Oscar helped with distribution for the most part, though he was always glad to teach a kid a lesson if he needed to. 

Most of the time, the kids just got their papers and moved on. Their uncle had some kind of weird agreement with an Italian kid with a cigar that he would spot him papers for good tips. They never worked out but their uncle kept going back.

Oscar assumed that Morris got his smarts from their mother’s side.

\-- 

By the time the boys were sixteen, they’d both accepted that their father probably wasn’t going to come back. Otto said they could stay with him until Oscar turned eighteen and he figured by that time, he could work his way up the ranks and do something real with the papers. Maybe write or help pull in advertisers. He couldn’t draw so that was out and he wasn’t a girl so there was no way he was going to be some kind of secretary.

Either way, he figured he would be able to take care of himself and his brother by the time he reached eighteen.

\--

Oscar was seventeen when the office got a call from someone in Philadelphia saying his father was dead and he needed to come get him. Oscar didn’t have a car, couldn’t really drive, so Otto gave him some money for the train and sent him on his way. Morris stayed back assuming that Oscar would bring the body home. In reality, Oscar was going to make sure it was their father and then let Philadelphia deal with it. 

When he got home a couple of weeks later – that city was hell and more disorganized than the orphans on Duane Street – his brother had a black eye and a scowl on his face.

“What the hell happened to you?” Oscar asked as he took his hat off and put it on the rack.

“New kid,” Morris spat. “Claims he escaped the Refuge. Got half a mind to call Snyder myself but I don’t wanna be back there so Uncle Otto said ta just ignore ‘im ‘cause the other kids ain’t gonna put up wi’ that for too long.” 

“Show me tomorrow. We’ll make sure he don’t mess around anymore.” Oscar led his brother into the kitchen. “You soak ‘im?”

Morris just grinned.

\--

Jack Kelly was a thorn in his side from the first time he met him. He had a smart mouth and a lazy smirk and just seeing the kid made Oscar’s blood boil. He was an _orphan._ Where in the hell did this kid get off acting like he owned New York? If anyone did, it was him. He was a _Delancey_. His name meant something.

He _hated_ Jack Kelly more than he hated his father for abandoning him and Morris, more than he hated his uncle for treating him like free labor or some kind of roommate, more than he hated Snyder and the Refuge.

Kelly was always starting fights and trying to get him and Morris into trouble. Sometimes it worked, sometimes Oscar was able to roll his eyes and make the kid move on without giving him the satisfaction. Jack charmed everyone else around, his family excluded, and even got all the girls. He had friends who cared about him, he was a good seller and he was confident. 

Oscar often wished Kelly’d do something to get arrested again so he wouldn’t have to deal with the stupid kid anymore.

\--

Oscar thought he had hated Jack Kelly as much as he possibly could, but when a tall schoolboy showed up, things got worse. Jack got more confident, more cocky, like he was showing off (and man did Oscar want to catch Jack and the schoolboy doing something disgusting so he could have them both sent to the Refuge), and it made Oscar madder than he'd ever been before.

It felt _damn_ good when the newsies went on strike and his uncle let him and his brother have a crack at them. He got a good punch in on the schoolboy and even a couple on Kelly, and he’d gone home that night with a sore hand and a black eye but satisfaction running through his veins. There was no way Jack Kelly was smart enough to pull off a real strike. Pulitzer and The World were going to crush him.

And Oscar couldn’t wait to watch the whole thing.


End file.
